Coming out? When did you come out?
It’s a common question in the land of queer. How long have you been out? Are you all the way out? Does your family know? Do your coworkers know? Do your friends know? Who knows and who doesn’t know? How committed are you to the lifestyle? Loving women and living as a woman lover?
There are lots of unspoken rules in the land of queer. And depending on the unspoken and unwritten rules, you’ll succeed or fail in some significant ways.
Mary Malia - Your Gay Girl Dating Coach
Are you femme? Are you butch? Are you something in between? Have you ever been with a man? Were you married? Do you have kids? Did you like sex with a man? Do you miss it? Do you like penetration? Do you hate the idea of penetration? How many partners have you had? And on it goes.
These are just a few of the questions that come up between women in the process of exploring relationship. It all depends on your past and what’s happened. It depends on the woman on the other side of the table and what her past is about. Our experiences shape our present and determine our futures. Do guys ask these questions? Damn if I know. I’m not a guy and I haven’t been hanging out that close to gay men to find out.
As a woman who came out later in life, I’ve met lesbians that don’t want to date me because there is an ex-husband and children. I’ve also met women that wanted to date me and in spite of my being honest and upfront about my past had issues with the ex-husband and my children as time went on.
Sometimes it feels like there is no winning for losing in some conversations. I continue to meet many women that have come out later in life. It’s a phenomenon that I think we will always see. Perhaps it will happen less when sperm donation becomes an easier and less expensive option for younger women. But it’s also going to take a lot more work being done on equal rights for both men and women to decide they don’t need to “pretend to be straight” to have a family and kids.
But what I really want to say here today is that coming out later in life is not simple. It’s not easy either. It’s definitely not what most women expect when they decide to come out. I’ve had more than a few conversations with women who had an idea in their head about what it would be like to finally come out. To leave their husbands and their marriage and risk all to be with a woman.
I admit that the movie I was running in my head when I came out was not at all what happened in real life. My movie included me and a woman I viewed as beautiful being together. We had a sweet house and animals and maybe a child or two (one was mine and the other her’s) who got along so well. We had beautiful music playing all the time, we always wanted to do the same things at the same time, we moved and breathed at the same pace and believed all the same things about life. She was soft. Soft lips with no pointy prickly beard bristles and we would melt into each other’s soft bodies to make love that would last for hours.
Oh and did I mention that there would be beautiful music playing all the time. It would just be in the air, like the smell of ylang ylang when you walk into a spa. And we would talk softly and about deep things except for the times when we would laugh with abandon. And did I mention that there would always be romantic music playing, floating through the air.
We’d be so happy and content. We’d enjoy and share all that life has to offer. Even enjoying all the same foods and sharing dinners together every evening.
Did I mention that this didn’t happen? No, it didn’t happen for me. It’s not my story of coming out. In my story, yes I fell in love and then my heart was broken. Now that’s not unusual is it? My first love didn’t want me after all. It didn’t take long, just 3 short months and that first love had fallen apart. She had warned me that there was a process to coming out and she’d been there and done it. She also at one point talked about wanting to share this season of my life with me, but that didn’t happen. We parted ways and I was off to figure it out on my own.
What a mess I felt I’d created. I was overwhelmed with the magnitude of changes after being married for 21 years. No one had really helped me understand the “rules” of the lesbian community and when I ran into them face first, it was one more thing that broke my heart. I just didn’t understand why women didn’t want to get to know me or be friends. Ok, I was pretty naive. I’d forgotten about 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade girls. Yeah, it can be just like that if you’re trying to hang out with the wrong crowd.
The therapist I was seeing actually fell asleep on me one day. Yes, really. That was the end of that relationship. It was one more thing that hurt too deeply. I moved into a neighborhood that was very gay friendly with plenty of queers living there. Actually it was the same neighborhood my exe girlfriend was living in. She’d wanted me to live close but at the point of my moving just three blocks from her, she broke up with me.
So I’m living in this really queer friendly part of town, but still I wasn’t able to easily meet women for friendship and just to hang out. It was still before the days of Meetup.com and dating sites where just coming online. It was a lonely place to be at that time for me.
I’m sure one issue was that I looked too straight. I looked like someone who’d been married and was heterosexual. Well that makes sense right. I’d only been out for a year and I was still finding my way out of the old world and slowly walking into a new world with its own set of rules and expectations.
My experience of the lesbian world in those first few years showed me that its as full of rules as the heterosexual world. It’s just that the rules are different and sometimes particularly surprising for a newbie to the land of queer. One of those unspoken rules is that a woman that came out when she was young and is now a bit older often doesn’t want to date women who are just coming out of long term heterosexual relationships.
Like many late to the game lesbians, I was hurt by this “rule” when I first learned about it. As my lesbian life experience has grown, I now get it. It makes complete sense to me that life long lesbians just want to protect their hearts from women who may just be curious versus serious. There’s a lot of video and TV time being given to the idea of two women being together. In the land of queer where the lesbians live, its not a game show or a reality show, it’s real life with real hearts and real emotions.
For those of you that have realized late in life that you must own your self and that your truth is living as lesbian, I salute you. You will and have taken many brave steps to get to where you are. This in no way diminishes the courage of the women that have always lived their lives out in the open. The truth is that the courage of those that have always taken a stance for lesbian freedom are our heroines. Those are the women that helped me finally realize that I must live my truth. Thank you again for you courage, for your lives lived in the open and your voices.
Additionally have some mercy for the late to life lesbians as we stumble and perhaps bumble about trying to figure out what to do and with who and when. You are probably tired of women like me, but we’re not going away. Actually you can probably expect more and more of us to be showing up and in that deluge of late to life lesbians, we will be able to solve the problem of there not being enough lesbians to date!
How’s that for a turn-around?
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
What a charming article! As you well know my story doesn’t really line up here, but I’ll tell it anyway, because telling coming out stories is one of my favorite things to do! Anyway, here goes.
I’ve always been totally, obviously gay. I had my first “crush” on a girl in Sunday school when I was four. She had gorgeous white blonde hair, and she let me play with it lol. Around that time, even though I didn’t know what it was, when when I became acutely aware that something was “different.”There was definitely a difference in the way I viewed other little girls and the way they viewed me and each other.
By the time I was 7, the word “queer” was being shouted at me on a regular basis, and the folks in my family-my utterly, hopelessly, deeply religious family- were whispering about me being “that way.” By the time I was 12, there was absolutely no doubt. I wound up in one of those crazy ex gay places for awhile. Of course it didn’t work, but it did plenty of damage. By this point, I pretty much screamed it, and at 14, I was outed at school and never went back in. I found out everyone knew because I arrived to the 9th grade one morning in early October 1996 to the word “fag” spray painted on my locker. After that, life was a living hell for any number of reasons, including but not limited to locker room beat downs, having eggs thrown at me, and suicide attempts. But, as they say, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and, looking back, I am glad I stayed out and didn’t deny it, even though the road would have been easier if I had. It saved me a lot of grief over a lot of things, despite the hardships.
As for the rules-Mary, I know you know them by now. You’ve done a splendid job with this site and your service to ladies who took the path less traveled. To the rest of you- queers are just as judgmental as heterosexuals, maybe even more so. Its a closed club and your pass is earned, not given. At the top of the list of said judgmental people are so called “Gold Star” lesbians- those who have never been with a dude. Even the very brief, sexless besides a sexual assault, sham of an ordeal I had with a dude used to get me questioned, until I finally got up the nerve to start telling people the truth: that I had used this man because I wanted to save my relationship with my family, that I didn’t have sex with him, and that the only time it happened it wasn’t consensual. Yep, that’s how it is. But never fear, there ARE tons of women out there just like you, with similar paths and experiences. You just have to find them. Hats off to all of you for your bravery. Visiting Mary’s awesome space here is a great way to get started.
Hi Mary,
This speaks to me on so many levels. Thank you! Your site is so thoughtful, helpful and makes me realize I am not alone. I am one that has come out later and was married as well. I have a 2 year old now. I have been getting help from my ex-husband and we’re redefining how to parent our child.
In the meantime, I am trying to focus on myself, clean up my finances, find new hobbies and learn how to embrace who I am. It is not easy that’s for sure. However, through my art (comic strips) I have found a way to express my dating experiences and my thoughts on love and/relationships. It’s helped me analyze the different parts of myself and I am discovering I’m still a hopeful romantic. However, I also realize that I still have so much work to do. I don’t mean like “Fixing myself” but more like on a deeper level. This will be good to get all the baggage out of the way so I am clearer, more aware of what I want in a relationship. I have so much to give. Yet, need to learn to go slow, be patient and know that I am a mom first. Thank you for your article! xoxox Sophie Navarro
Hi Sophie,
Congrats on taking so many big steps to live authentically in your life. Be sure to remember to breath. In and out. A lot! And time will work it’s magic and it will get easier and better. I love your comics and look forward to collaborating!
Mary, this article touched on a nerve. I’ve been trying lately to “fit in” with the lesbian community, but I just can’t seem to do it. I’m sick of being judged – I’ve also been told that I look “too straight”, and lesbians often assume that I’m married. They’ve also told me that I look “unapproachable”, what ever that means. Other lesbians sometimes seem to be jealous, too – they tell me that I should set my sights low because no beautiful woman would ever want me. Maybe she’s right – lots and lots of men seem to want me, but not women. Bisexual women are interested for a short time, but they always wind up with men. I’m really attracted to bi women, but it’s difficult to find a bi woman who wants to be with me. Frankly, lesbians turn me off. And I AM a lesbian – I don’t identify as bi because I’m not attracted to men. I love men, but not in bed. I really don’t know what to do because “the rules” and the judgement just make me want to throw in the towel and give up hope of ever trying to find someone.
I could have written all of this myself.
Furthermore, after a lifetime of cutting my teeth on male-female relationships and learning to rein in my worst, I had a pretty good gasp of boundaries and how not to be that stalker chick or that crazy ex-girlfriend. I learned how to give another person space and how to be happy on my own to some degree. I’ve had a hard time meeting lesbian women who are emotionally very balanced or mature.
My ideal woman would probably be someone with similar experience.
This…..is…..so…..awesome. Finally finding someone (and others) who’ve also found themselves arriving late to the dance and having to face an incredibly bewildering ‘learing curve’ for navigating the land of lesbians ! Over the past two years, I’ve waited patiently for my ‘playbook’ to arrive in the mail—complete with the secret handshake and magic decoder ring—but still nothing, even though I sent in my dues (LOL). Add to that living in a smallish conservative community, in a midwestern conservative state (don’t get me started on the politics!), and being an introvert with a very small circle of straight friends (some who know, others who don’t) has, at times, pushed me to the brink of just giving up and living out the rest of my life as a hermit. Then I’ll run across something that gives me hope again…like this blog ! Yay ! Thankyouthankyouthankyou !!!
Drumdiva sounds like me is it femme are harder ti find than butch
I don’t feel quite so dismal after reading that. Add transitioning transsexual woman on top of that and it gets even more complex. I have lots of lesbian friends, more friends is not what I want. I get sick of people telling me how great I am, I want them to ask me out!
Kaz.
Hi Karen,
Wherever we go there we are and learning to create your own happiness is key to wherever we are in life. I wish you all the best!!
I just found this website after having such a hard time accepting what I am going through. It has made me feel significantly better. I am 34 and have just started realizing that I am attracted to women a little over a year ago. I have always had a good circle of gay and straight friends. The friends that were gay i support completely, then and now. am seriously struggling with this transition. I live in a small Midwestern town where everyone knows everyone and my family also lives here. I have never been married, but have had many male relationships, which have never been a problem, but nothing has ever clicked for me until now. Now I have met a women that I have fallen in love with and want to see a future with, and she loves me and wants the same things from me. She is beautiful, smart,big hearted, an makes me wanna be a better person. I work in education and in this small community this type of sexuality is frowned upon. My parents have always been a huge part in my life as well as my married brother. My family is shocked and I do not know how to handle their confusion and help them understand what I am feeling, mostly my brother and father. I want to continue my life with her, but am really needing their support. I am not asking that they be excited for me or overjoyed, but happy that I am happy. I am also trying to figure out if I may need to move or get another job in a town where it is more socially acceptable. It has crossed my mind to just walk away and give up because of how hard it has been on me, my girlfriend (because of what I am going through), and my family. This has been so emotionally hard on me and breaks me down and times. I try and be strong and say it will all work out, but it has been a hard road this far. The good thing about it is that my partner is there holding my hand and supporting me all the way, even when I tend to distance myself because I try and not let her know how hard it is on me. I would love some advice on my situation and struggles. Thank you so very much for putting this information out and thank you for making this so much easier to see that other women such as myself are going through some of the same things.
Hi Jo,
First congratulations on finding your truth. Your truth does not need to line up with your family’s version of truth. Also you’ve been dealing with this a lot longer than your family. Give them time and space. When they see you are happy and your life is good, they will come around. Really they will.
They’ve known you for 37 years as their straight daughter who would marry and have kids. They are grieving the loss of the daughter they knew, just as you are grieving the loss of the simple relationship you had with them. They don’t have a new found love to make them feel better and realize being true to yourself is best. But if you stand your ground with love, they will eventually find a way to be ok with you.
If moving is a real option you should consider it. Living someplace where you feel more free to express your new found lesbian self can be a wonderful experience. Many lgbt people take this route to freedom of expression, especially those that live in small towns that are conservative.
Congrats on your bravery. Sometimes in order to be faithful to ourselves we must be unfaithful to those we love. I believe our first duty as individuals is to be our most honest self.
hugs, Mary
Hi Mary,
Thank you for sharing your story, I feel like I am living your life and came out in a similar fashion and had the troubled lesbian relationship that didn’t last and am now alone and trying to figure out the rules and find my way. I was married for 25 years, 2 kids and lots of problems and heartache along the way to this coming out process. But now, life can still be painful, but Im here and Im queer, and want to live life authentically. I love your website and look to it for support. Thank you
Hi Mary, i am so loving reading all your posts, they are so full of very important information for me, Thank you!!!
I must say, I must be a lucky girl in relation to being accepted to the Lesbian community with open arms….
On the suggestion of a straight female friend I went on dating websites to try and connect with Lesbians..I wasn’t going to go to a pub and being in a new city and not knowing any guy people well the only choice…So I joined one (not a gay site) and posted photos and a bit of a blurb about me, I found a Lesbian whom I thought had things in common and contacted her, so we exchanged emails for a bit and she agreed to have coffee with me some time….when I approached her about it I didn’t hear back from her! I decided to search for actual Lesbian dating sites and found 2 and joined. One site was free the other I payed for one months subscription. After so many rejections and about to give up, one girl accepted my offer to go and have a coffee. wow just in the nick of time my payed membership was ending in 2 days!!
We met and we are know great friends phewww!( it was “funny” when i was out with my new friend at a gay night club who did we bump into the girl that never got back to me…poor thing she was mortified even though I was very friendly with her!). Through this site I received an email about a Lesbian group so I contacted them back and mentioned that I was new at this and wasn’t sure about going to their meetings…to my delight I was told that I would be very welcomed and that it would be the perfect place for me to join!! well I love this group , they made me feel so ,so welcomed and I know feel like I belong for the first time ever in my life!! Growing up I was never in the “in” groups , never went out, NEVER had a boyfriend ( until the age of 19 and he became my husband 2 years later!) , never went to parties etc. I was always invisible!! I migrated to Australia with my family at the age of 17 and know I was adding ‘foreigner” to my portfolio !!
Even though through my husband I made loads of friends , whom I adore I never quite “fit” in…didn’t know why…until 3 years ago something just changed and I started to realize that wasn’t happy with my “straight” life. I had been nursing my husband for almost 4 years , he was know dying and I was literally drowning! I had decided that when he recovered I was going to leave him, we had been together for 32 years and even though I had loved him I just couldn’t live like this! it so happened that the Universe had an ‘easier” path for me…my husband passed away and therefore I didn’t have to hurt him by leaving him….a year after he died I sold up and moved interstate and started my new life.It will be 2 years since he passed away this October. My 2 daughters live here as well and my son moved back up were we lived before…I haven’t come out to them as yet I will when the time is right. I am loving who I am, and although I wasn’t 100% sure I was a Lesbian, I now know I am. I haven’t had a romantic date as yet, but now I feel like I fit into my “suit”, I belong , i am no longer invisible and I am loving my life!! I am 53 and having the best time in my life!!
Thank you Mary so much for being here and helping newbies like me learn all about being a gay girl!!!
I’m so glad I found you!!!
I’m still in the half-world, stumbling along, trying to find my way through. I’m as confused and awkward as I was at 19, still a virgin, and doing and saying all the wrong things. I’m reeling because the woman I fell in love with moved away to start a new life. I never told her how I feel because by the time I’d figured it out, she’d moved on. She’s not the first woman I’ve felt an strong attraction to, I know now these feelings aren’t going away.
I’m 61 and have been in a committed relationship with my 86 year-old male partner for the last 15 years. This partner has been always supportive of me, but I don’t know how to talk to him about this new “wrinkle”, or even if I should.
I’m still looking for the light at the end of this tunnel, and it’s so good to know about other women who are at different stages of their journeys.
I loved this post. For quite some time, I have been struggling with my sexual orientation and making vain attempts to either define or deny it. While I am not quite at the point of “entering” the world of lesbians or being scrutinized by its rules and judgments, just accepting the fact that I am attracted to women has my head reeling about what to do next. I first realized that I was attracted to females around junior high, while at the same time being thrust into the world of straight puberty and the strict gendered expectations that come with it, especially having grown up in the uber-traditional American South. I had many gay friends in high school and college, even a couple of clumsy and mishandled make out sessions with girls here and there. But I only dated men. And rather unsuccessfully. I chalked up these difficulties, both sexual and social, to having been a victim of sexual assault in my early adolescence. Any sexual attraction toward my boyfriends waned very quickly and any subsequent sexual activity was an obligatory chore that bred resentment and humiliation. In my mid twenties, things began to change. In between straight relationships, I began to have sexual encounters with women, but only in situations where men were present. More than one of those encounters were with women that I felt very close and attracted to, and the man’s presence was merely an unfortunate obstacle. But such flings don’t define sexual orientation, and as many have pointed out, were more evidence of a media culture that glorifies the femme, girl-on-girl Hollywood porn picture of lesbian life. Beautiful women getting on to entertain a man. But that’s not what it was for me. I continued to have unsuccessful, uncomfortable, unfulfilling, and often emotionally damaging relationships with men until recently. At 32, I just got out of one that was more damaging than any thing else I have experienced. Despite being attracted emotionally and physically to women, I have never stepped into that world and actively sought a relationship with a woman, and rarely acted on desires I have had on female friends, no matter how tempting. When I hear you describe your lofty expectations of what that relationship might look, smell, and feel like, it struck a chord with me. I do not want to fall prey to the “grass is greener on the other side” mindset. I have no reason to think that I would be more successful in a relationship with a woman than I have with men, nor do I want to delude myself into thinking that same sex relationships are immune to heartache, deception, drama, rejection, and misunderstanding that goes on everywhere else. But I have to give it a try. Constantly waging war against the role I’m expected to play in a straight relationship is destroying me. Has anyone been through this?
Is there any advise for those of us who are in love with someone who is in a long term heterosexual marriage in which that person loves and would like to be with me but can’t because of the kids and grand kids and the turmoil it may cause to the family unit? She is a wreck and so am I because I hate to continue the relationship knowing that this is a HUGE change in her life and may not have the happy outcome…how can I better support her if she chooses me over him and the kids? What advise should I or could I be able to give her in this difficult time?
Stumbled across your site today for the first time, Mary and have to say you’ve got something really wonderful here. I’ve been on this journey of embracing my sexuality for two years now. Its been amazing and terrifying and completely insane. The main thing that has gotten me through is connecting with other brave women who have gone before me. Supporting each other and sharing our stories is so incredibly important and can make a tremendous difference in someone’s journey. Your post was exactly what I needed to read today…thank you so much.
Felix,
Embracing your true self and the journey to living an authentic life is definitely hard at times. I’m glad you found Gay Girl Dating Coach and that you’ve found community along the way to support you.
Best wishes, Mary